flour to Venango & Le Boeuf: and have got all the flour from Red Stone Creek. One man is deserted from Presque Isle, another from Detroit: unless the Batt? is recruited, we must be very weak after the Campaign, when the men intitled to their discharge, will be again very troublesome. Capt. Barnsley will have informed you that I had been robbed of a considerable sum of the Subsistence Money he had sent me. As there was no Cash here and the Engeneers could get none for Bills, I kept it in my hands to pay the Labourers, & other Publick Expences, and have advanced some hundred Pounds to that Branch, the workmen being very Clamorous for their Weekly Pay. I could not make any discovery hitherto, no Person that could possibly be suspected has lefft the place since & the Thieves must still be here. La triste situation de mes affaires me fait aurè prendre la libertée de vous écrire pour vous supplière de vouloir bien m accorder la permistion de rétourner au Detroit, a Michilimakina et à Montreal, pour vacquer a mes interets, et de la passer en France dans le courrant de cette année. Je me flatte Monsieur que vous aurée lieu d'estre satisfait de la manier avac la quel je me comporterée honettemant, pandant mon séjour au Canada, et ne feré rien qui puisse porter préjudisse au service de sa majesté Britannique pandant se tems. J'ai l'honneur d'estre avec un profond respec Monsieur votre tres umble et tres obbeissant serviteur AT BABY. (See preceding letter.) PETERS TO MONCKTON. HONOURED & DEAR SIR, My head was so full of Lottery Tickets when you went out of Town that I passed the Door & never thought of it till after you were gone. We have been amusing ourselves at Easton with a grand Meeting of Six Nation Indians & their Dependants the Nantycokes, Conoys, Moheckons, Tutulors & Delawares. They were so hard put to it for an Excuse to come down. that they laid before the Governor a Belt given for the Confirmation of ye peace three years ago as a Belt given to invite them to a Treaty. In this they were set right and then they began most lamentable complaints against General Johnson for discouraging Trade & stopping up their Road to ye Inhabitants of Albany & New York wth Forts &c. and pretended that he would put them to death. In this likewise they were set right and then they mentioned the Connecticut settlement. This was related to them in its naked truth and they were moreover told that these vagrants settled those Lands under colour of Indian Purchases & they were asked if they had sold the Lands to y New England People, they denied it & mentioned y' some private Indians had taken upon them to sell it. We 1 gave them a Rect. & string to carry to ye Onondago Council & to request that in full Council they would reprove their young men & declare those sales void. In short Presents were made as usual & a large Number of Quakers attended & were as busy as ever. The Minutes are correcting, & ye Gov' will send you a Copy & another to Gen! Amherst. My most humble service to your good Family & my little Children. Pray has Mrs Gates brought into y° world a son & Heir & is she well? I am much obliged to her & M2 Gates. I suppose you slink the Commission for Governor in Chief till after ye Expedition. I am Sir Your most obliged RICHARD PETERS. PHILAD 15 Aug: 1761. PRIVY COUNCIL REPORT ON CADWALLADER COLDEN'S (LATE TO THE KING'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY. MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MAJESTY, We have had under our consideration several letters and papers which we have received from Cadwallader Colden Esq Lieut. Governor and late Commander in Chief of your Majestys Province of New York in America; and as these letters and papers have reference to certain measures of Government there, which have either been acted upon, or become the subject matter of discussion, and which appear to us materially to affect your Majesty's service, and the interest and welfare, not only of the Province, but of all other your Majesty's Colonies and Plantations in America, we think it our indispensable duty in obedience to the directions of our Commission, humbly to lay them before your Majesty, with such observations as have occurred to us upon them. The material points to which these papers refer, and to which we shall confine our observations are 1st The measures which the Lieutenant Governor and Council have entered upon for granting lands and making settlements upon the Mohawk River, and in the country adjacent to Lake George. 2a The proposition made to the Lieut. Governor by the Council to grant commissions to the Judges during good behaviour, the limitations of which commissions is by your Majesty's Instructions to all your Governors in America to be during pleasure only. We shall not upon this occasion take upon us to controvert the general principles of policy upon which either one or other of these general propositions is founded, but however expedient and constitutional they may appear in the abstract view and consideration of them, yet we humbly apprehend, that when they come to be applied to the present state of your Majesty's Colonies, they will appear in a very different light, and be found, the one to be dangerous to their security, and the other to be destructive to the interests of the People, and subversive of that policy by which alone the Colonies can be kept in a just dependence upon the government of the Mother Country. This, may it please your Majesty, is the general light in which we see these measures, but as they are in their nature separate and distinct, so they will, we humbly apprehend, require a separate and distinct consideration, and therefore we shall humbly offer to your Majesty what has occurred to us upon each, in the order in which we have placed them. It is as unnecessary as it would be tedious to enter into a detail of all the causes of complaint which our Indian allies had against us at the commencement of the troubles in America, and which not only induced them, though reluctantly to take up the hatchet against us and desolate the settlements on the frontiers, but encouraged our enemies to pursue those measures which have involved us in a dangerous and critical war, it will be sufficient for our present purpose to observe that the primary cause of that discontent which produced these fatal effects was the cruelty and injustice with which they had been treated with respect to their hunting grounds, in open violation of those solemn compacts by which they had yielded to us the dominion but not the property of their lands. It was happy for us that we were early awakened to a proper sense of the injustice and bad policy of such a conduct towards the Indians, and no sooner were those measures pursued which indicated a disposition to do them all possible justice upon this head of complaint than those hostilities which had produced such horrid scenes of devastation, ceased, and the Six Nations and their Dependents became at once from the most inveterate enemies our fast and faithful friends. Their steady and intrepid conduct upon the expedition under General Amherst for the reduction of Canada, is a striking example of the truth of what we have represented and they now, trusting to our good faith impatiently wait for that event, which by putting an end to the war shall not only ascertain the British Empire in America, but enable your Majesty to renew those compacts by which their property in their lands shall be ascertained, and such a system of reform introduced with respect to our interests and commerce with them as shall at the same time, that it redresses their complaints and establishes their |